FINDING LIGHT - PART I

Seeing anew in Serabu

A medical mission
turns into a life's work for Tom Lewis '73

By David Exall Stewart

The 21-year-old on the operating table in Serabu, Sierra Leone, spoke excitedly in his native Mende and refused to stop.

American ophthalmologist Dr. Cathy Schanzer began to lose her patience.

She was only halfway through her schedule of about 25 eye surgeries and countless examinations on this hot day in June 2010.

"He has to stop talking," Schanzer commanded. "We need to get started."

"Dr. Schanzer, you must hear this," pleaded Mohamed, Schanzer's highly trusted surgical assistant.

"My parents," the man quickly explained through Mohamed, "put me in a home for the blind at age five when cataracts took my vision. I still don't know what happened to them."

(Cataracts plague the malnourished of all ages in the undeveloped world, even infants occasionally. It is their number one cause of blindness.)

"I lived there helpless and totally dependent until January when I came to your clinic and you removed the cataract from my left eye. Being able to see has changed everything. I have moved out of the home. I am independent now."

He wasn't finished.

"I met my wife at the home for the blind," he said, tears rolling down his cheek, "You operated on our baby's cataracts this morning.

"This afternoon, you will remove a cataract from one of my wife's eyes."

By now, Schanzer was wiping away tears.

"I had to tell you how grateful we are," the man concluded.

"Your work has changed our lives."